A Personal Present

For almost every special occasion, holiday, or birthday, my kids and I like to go the "homemade" route. It means more to the recipient and they're darn cute! Homemade cards, fingerpaintings, crafts all make their way into the hands of friends and family as a way to say I love you. And our very favorite way to spread our love is by painting pottery at Tip Top Pottery in White River Junction.﻿

I've spent a lot of time and energy at Tip Top, and when the time came for us to go again to make a mug for Grampy's birthday, I realized I have never posted about our adventures there yet. That's probably because I usually have to wrangle my two kids alone with breakable ceramics (we've broken a few in our day) and paint within arm's length so the stories are neither glamorous nor photogenic. But when Daddy comes with us, and now that Em is a little less hectic, I can take a moment to document the process from start to finish.

The first thing you do is grab a ceramic piece that you want to paint. We've painted plates, many Christmas ornaments, and a few mugs during our visits. JDubbs has given me two framed ceramic tiles with our babies' footprints and their names from there--I absolutely love them. We knew we were going to make a mug so we just grabbed that and headed to the paint.

The paint actually dries a different color than what it looks like in the bottle, so they have these cute frogs painted in the finished color. Jax walks around and decides which color he likes best and tells me the number of the frog he wants.

Then we grab a paintbrush or two

and get started!

Em had a great time using a paintbrush. She didn't even try to eat it.

What a big girl.

And big brother embraced his inner artist rock star.

After we painted the mug inside and out, we painted the kids' hands and made handprints on it. Then we wrote their names underneath and the year.

Afterwards, they played with the stamps while we waited for Daddy to pay.

We love going there and it is very kid-friendly. And we make really fabulous keepsakes. Grampy loved his mug and Grammy is going to murder me if she doesn't get one for Mother's Day. I like to think of it as my alternative to complaining about my shopping options up here; I don't have anywhere cool to shop, so here's a mug! Well, that and they really are great gifts. I suggest you check out a local pottery place with your kids, no matter what their age; don't forget Mother's Day is just around the corner!